Jonathan Chait: “When Trump goes off script, he usually starts talking about the one subject that compels his interest and occupies most of his waking hours: television. At this moment in the rally, Trump started riffing on a series of pillow ads he has frequently seen…”

“This was a completely typical moment in a Trump rally. The president is attempting to manipulate the darkest impulses in the American soul, goading his followers with an authoritarian vision of themselves as a populist uprising against a sinister international conspiracy. But the leader of the movement is simply too bored to stay on topic, and continually changes the channel on his own speech. You can almost see the president relaxing in his Barcalounger, clicking the remote control.”

“Trump failed as a businessman, but then succeeded playing one on television. During the Obama era, he hit upon a new market in right-wing paranoia, sensing the racial anxieties of aging white America being underserved by a Republican leadership that wanted to talk about budget deficits. He was drawn unexpectedly into the presidency as he chased this audience. And yet he has made it obvious, especially in Minneapolis, that his goal all along was to be talked about favorably on television.”

“President Trump’s propensity to mislead, misconstrue and obfuscate is escalating as he confronts the threat of becoming just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached,” the Washington Post reports.

“For days, Trump and his allies have repeatedly charged that the whistleblower — whose complaint about Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine set off the current impeachment inquiry — made up a ‘false story,’ even though many of the claims have been shown to be accurate. The president has insisted that his top Democratic and Republican critics on Capitol Hill should be impeached for their efforts against him, despite a centuries-old precedent that prevents such an action.”

“And, White House lawyers this week sent congressional leaders an eight-page letter vowing not to cooperate with the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry that was laden with imprecise or misleading interpretations of congressional oversight powers and the chamber’s constitutional right to impeach, according to legal experts.”

Greg Sargent: At rally, Trump tells five big lies in three minutes.

The Bulwark: “Team Trump’s ‘no collusion’ tune has gone silent in the latest round of foreign election interference scandals. The evidence is clear from Trump’s own words that he sought to motivate Ukraine to manufacture dirt on Joe Biden and his son by opening a criminal investigation in Ukraine that—to date—has no basis in fact. The silence suggests that Team Trump knows the ‘no collusion’ cry won’t work this time.”

“President Trump has spent his time in office trying to bend the conventions of the American presidency to his will. Now he appears to be trying to override a core principle of democracy: that no one is above the law,” the AP reports.

“Faced with an impeachment inquiry, Trump has openly defied the core constructs of the Constitution. He chafes at the idea of co-equal branches of government and rejects the House’s right to investigate him.”

“He has deployed a convoluted logic in which he has declared that the courts can’t investigate him because as president he cannot be charged with a crime but also that Congress cannot impeach him because its inquiry is politically illegitimate.”